Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning

There are a few things that are bound to stain either your carpet or upholstery sometime in your life, and when it happens, odds are you won't know what to do. Some of the most common stains that people have a hard time getting out are blood, candle wax, and chewing gum.

Blood is more common than you would think. Often time's people will cut themselves by accident or get a little hangnail and start to bleed without even knowing it and end up wiping it on the carpet or on a couch by accident. If this is the case, the first thing to do is to blot, not wipe, as much of the blood as you can with a paper towel. Next you'll need to neutralize the stain by using some mixture of water and ammonia. Spray it on and then let it sit for a few minutes, then follow up by blotting up excess moisture with a paper towel again. Once neutralized, now you can start cleaning. Make a mixture of water and dish soap and blot it into the area that's stained. Once you think it's been cleaned enough, rinse out with water, blot again and then take a pad of towels and put them on top of the stain, followed by something heavy to help absorb all the moisture. Check back in an hour or two and if the stain isn't gone yet, repeat the process.

Candle wax, it's a stain we will all have to deal with at one point in our life and it's a pain if you don't know what to do. The first thing to do if you spill candle wax on your carpet or on some upholstery is to pick off as much as you can with your fingers or tweezers. Next, lay a dry rag or a paper bag over the area and iron over it to help melt the wax. The paper bag or rag will automatically pick up the wax as it melts. Just repeat the process until the wax is gone. If there is a lot of wax, try dampening your rag, the steam created from the dampness and the hot iron will help to pick up even more wax.

You've probably heard it all before, but refuse to believe it, that peanut butter is the way to get gum out of the carpet or off your couch. All you have to do is put a spoonful of it on the gum and mix it around with the gum and let it sit for a few minutes. After letting it sit, wipe up with a damp rag and voila, you're good to go. Another great way to get rid of gum stains is using WD-40. Just spray it onto the affected area, let sit and the gum should come lose in a few minutes. The only thing you need to watch is for staining that the WD-40 might do to your upholstery, so test it on a small piece just in case.

There's a solution to getting almost any stain out of your carpet or upholstery, so never ever give into the notion that all is lost. In some cases, hiring a carpet or upholstery cleaning company to do the work may be your only option, but that'll still be less expensive than having to buy all new carpet or a whole new couch.